NICE WEEK FINALLY! ROOSTERS MAKE A SHOW WITH OTHERS!
La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Bahia Suenos Fishing Report for Week of April 17-24, 2026
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN FISHING REPORT
WEATHER: Really a nice week. Day times were sunny with highs in the mid-to-upper 80’s and pleasant without much humidity. Night very comfortable in the high 60’s to mid-70’s. A tad nippy in the morning and can be breezy, but then settles down . Wind not much of a factor except the early mornings going out’ve La Paz.
WATER: Interestingly, about 3-6 degrees warmer in the surface than normal. But cooler water below the thermocline drops another 5-10 degrees! Mostly calm and blue and flat most days . Had a few bumps when the winds came up and it got breezy, but overall much better than it has been.
FISH HOOKED THIS WEEK: Roosterfish, pargo, cabrilla, bonito, dorado, jack crevalle, marlin, snapper, triggerfish, rainbow runners, amberjack, yellowtail, dog-tooth, wahoo
MEXICAN MINUTE LA PAZ VIDEO FISHING REPORT
THE BIG PICTURE and the REST of the STORY…
Mike Benkert from Sunnyvale CA made a last minute booking and pretty much had just one day to fish with his flyrod. He really wanted to take a shot at a rooster! It’s not really flyfishing season yet…but what the heck…give it a shot! He caught and released two nice roosters and also got 2 dorado! He was with Captain Moncho. Punta Perico in the background .
Yea! This is more like it. It only takes one when it’s a trophy! Booo-yaaa! Darrell Manginelli with Capt. Pancho and a massive bull dorado he fought on light tackle! On the hand-scale at 43 pounds!
Happy Birthday to me! Our amigo, Jimmy Williams hit the south end of Cerralvo Island on his birthday this week…it was slightly productive! LOL….huge wahoo and dorado! We cooked a bunch up at our Tailhunter Restaurant for him.
One day to fish! Ola Mork from Seattle brought his family and they got dorado and this striper on live bait out’ve bahia Muertos!
Mike knows he’s holding this big dorado out with his arms! We laughed about it together, but still a trophy in any book! Huge bull on the flyrod! Easily a 40-pound-class fish.
Yes…the bigger roosters finally showed up this week! Our amigo, Gary Wagner, who has the Rancho Costa at Muertos got this big boy just inside the bay and released it.
Clifford Ray was an all star with the Golden State Warriors! He came down to fish a few days out’ve Rancho Costa a Bahia Muertos and always does well. Rooster…caught and released!
Maybe, it’s because both guys showed up accidentally with orange shirts! Mike and Darrell were with Captain Pancho at the south end of Cerralvo Island and massive 80-100 pound yellowfin tuna started busting out all around them. They baited up and flipped their hooked sardines into the boils and this big-shouldered striped marlin picked up both lines and took off! They both fought the fish four about 20 minutes on both rods and were able to release it swimming strong . But by then, the marlin had pulled them off the tuna spot! Great photo and story! Check out the flat water!
Pretty water right next to the beach in Muertos Bay holding some nice legit roosterfish! Mike Benkert with a 2nd rooster on the flyrod. Fish was released.
Eric Smith poses with one of his dorado on the day.
Just what he wanted. Mike…his flyrod…and a dorado. A good day! With Captain Monchol
From Alaska, Ken Ward is back. Fishing with Gary, and they have a big slab rooster just off the beach that they released.
Shawn Hurley from Boston got his rooster too! It was a good roosterfish week. Caught and released!
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Good news and bad news report this week…
Good news…probably the best fishing week so far this season which normally doesn’t kick in for another few weeks . Big roosterfish finally showed up. Some quality dorado got caught. There’s marlin around. The winds layed down and the waters got flat and blue.
BAD NEWS…the winds are coming back! Probably as you read this, the winds are picking up again after such a fun week. And they are going to blow all week from the north. That’s really going to put a damper on things. Normally, these northerns blow during the off-season from late October to April. Well…the winds are cutting back, but we’re still not out’ve the windy season yet.
GOOD NEWS…fortunately, we really don’t have big crowds of our fishermen yet. In about 2 weeks, we go full speed, but given the erratic winds, I’m glad we don’t have many folks this week!
But, let’s talk about this past week…
What a nice week we finally had! After a few so-so weeks, winds finally layed down. The ocean went flat and blue and the fish got cooperative.
To be honest, there were NOT alot of fish caught! Not alot of quantity.
However, the QUALITY or the fish caught this week was the best I have seen all year. Lots of trophy-sized fish.
The bigger roosters finally made an appearance with fish running 30-almost 100 pounds off Bahia Muertos, Punta Perico, Punta Arenas and the surrounding areas that we call “Roosterfish Alley.” We’ve been waiting for them to go off. We’ve had the little 5 and 10 pounders around, but these are the beast-boy roosters. They are in shallow water in the sandy or rocky areas and using live lady fish is the ticket for hooking these slab fish! Especially with a trap hook-set up. We also had some fish get hooked on Rapalas while guys were trying to drag up cabrilla.
One of our guests said it was pretty awesome looking down into the water and seeing big fish swimming under the boat and as soon as he tossed a bait in the water …BAM! Hook-up!
All roosterfish got released!
As well, some trophy-sized dorado also came up. There are NOT many dorado as it’s not quite dorado season yet, but if you can find the patches of the warmer water, the dorado hanging out there or near the buoys were the larger models this week. Again, not alot of them, but our largest was put on the scale at 43-pounds!
Likewise…billfish in terms of sailfish, striped marlin and blue marlin have also shown up early. Usually, we expect them later in May, but we had a number of hook-ups this week and all of them were released. The largest was found in the middle of a spot of big 100-pound tuna that started boiling around one of our boats. When the guys threw baits at the tuna , a hefty striped marlin came outta nowhere the hit both lines and off they went…chasing a marlin with two lines in it’s mouth!
No hook-ups on the tuna which were at the south end of Cerralvo Island, but we know there’s some big fish moving around there.
That south end of Cerralvo is getting fishy. We also had some wahoo hook-ups off the high spot at the south end.
Inshore, the usual pargo, cabrilla, snapper, bonito, rainbow runners and triggerfish are there to be caught .
A word about the yellowtail…
Normally, this is yellowtail season. However, the waters have warmed really fast and they are saying we’re gonna have a huge El Nino season. Yellowtail need cooler water. So, to be honest, there’s no yellowtail. They’ve moved off. Last week there was a yellowtail tournament in town. Twenty-five boats hooked a total of THREE yellowtail! For all intents and purposes, yellowtail are gone.
Daytime temps are now in the mid-80’s. Nightime really pleasant in the high 60’s to low 70’s. Very little humidity relatively speaking. Surface water temps are in the mid-to-high 70’s now but the thermocline about 30′ down drops off precipitously another 5 degrees or so and the waters get colder down deep.
This coming week is gonna be windy…5 days-in-a-row. But then, it flattens out again. Hopefully, this is the last big wind of the year. We’ll keep you posted!
That’s our story!
Jonathan & Jilly!
755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
U.S. Mailing Address: Tailhunter Sportfishing
8030 La Mesa Blvd. #178 La Mesa CA 91942
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863
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